The Development view is the most direct answer Compare Reviews gives to “is our coaching working?”. It tracks the development areas Compass extracted from each cycle’s reviews and shows which gaps got resolved, which are new, and which keep coming back for the same people.
It needs at least two cycles selected, with AI extraction complete on each.
What this page answers
Which development gaps were resolved between cycles and which emerged? Have the cohort’s gap priorities shifted? Who has the same gap cycle after cycle? Where are skills improving or declining by department?
What’s on the page
Development effectiveness
A table comparing each development gap between the earliest and latest selected cycle (top 15 gaps by activity):
Gap — The development area
Prior — How many people had this as their primary gap in the earlier cycle
Resolved — How many of those no longer have it in the later cycle
New — How many people picked it up as a new gap in the later cycle
Current — How many have it in the later cycle
L&D Effectiveness — A badge based on the resolution rate: Effective (60%+ resolved), Mixed (30–59%), or Needs Work (below 30%), with the percentage shown
Gap Trend — The net change (resolved minus new), shown as a trend
Both the resolved and new counts only include people who appear in both cycles — genuinely new employees can’t inflate the “new gaps” number.
Development area rank changes
A bump chart tracking how the top development areas rank across every selected cycle — #1 is the most common gap. Lines sloping down the rankings are gaps receding in importance; lines climbing are gaps growing. Only areas that make the top ten in at least two cycles are plotted, so the chart stays focused on persistent priorities rather than one-cycle blips.
Theme rank changes
The same bump-chart mechanic applied to the most discussed review themes — how what reviewers talk about has shifted in priority across the cycles. Again, only themes appearing in two or more cycles are shown.
Recurring development gaps
A table of employees whose same primary development area shows up in two or more of the selected cycles — the “development may not be working” list:
Name — Click to open the employee detail flyout
Department
Persistent Gap — The development area that keeps recurring
Cycles — How many of the selected cycles it appears in
Appears In — The named cycles
Low-quality extractions are excluded from this table, so a recurring gap reflects reviews with enough substance to trust.
Skills evolution
A heatmap of departments against skills, showing the direction of change in each skill’s level between the earliest and latest cycle: green (+ / ++) for improvement, amber (·) for stable, red (− / −−) for decline. Only department-skill combinations present in both cycles appear — a skill that only shows up in one cycle can’t have a direction.
Where the data comes from
Everything here compares the stored per-cycle review extraction outputs — primary development areas, themes, and skills signals. The effectiveness table and skills heatmap compare the first and last selected cycles; the bump charts and recurring-gaps table use every selected cycle.
How to read it
Start with the L&D Effectiveness column. A gap with a high resolution rate and few new cases is a genuine win. A gap with high “Resolved” and high “New” is churning, not closing — people swap gaps without the cohort improving.
The recurring gaps table is your intervention list. Someone carrying the same primary gap across two or more cycles hasn’t been served by whatever development happened in between — that’s a conversation, not another course.
Use the bump charts for strategy, the tables for action. A gap climbing the rankings across three cycles is an emerging firm-wide need worth building a programme around.
Cross-check skills evolution against effectiveness. A department showing red across several skills while its gaps read “Resolved” suggests gaps moved rather than closed.
Tips
“Resolved” means the gap changed, not that the person is finished developing. Their later review simply names a different (or no) primary gap — read the review before celebrating.
With three or more cycles selected, the effectiveness table still compares first vs last. The bump charts and recurring-gaps table are where the middle cycles earn their place.
Pair this view with the Reviews tab’s Development lens. That lens shows the single-cycle picture in depth; this view tells you whether it’s improving.